“Thanks,” I managed, hoping my voice didn’t betray the full-body awareness he always seemed to strike just by standing near me.
Lucy smirked over her drink like she’d caught every second of that.
I rolled my eyes and turned toward Ruby. “Okay. Show me what I’m supposed to do before I start proving everyone wrong.”
Ruby tossed me an apron. “Nowthatis the spirit.”
I caught it, and that slow, warm pulse of confidence I’d felt slipping earlier settled deeper. Maybe I could really do this. Maybe this was the start of something that didn’t hurt to want.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HIGH VOLTAGE HITits rhythm by noon.
Music loud enough to vibrate through bone, fryer poppin’ in the back, conversations rollin’ over one another until the whole place blended into that familiar noise I called profit. The bar breathed like a living thing, every table, every laugh, every goddamn heartbeat keeping time. I could tell when somethin’ shifted in it without even lookin’ up.
And right now, my attention kept driftin’ to the new waitress.
Lark moved through the tables with Ruby at her side, watchin’, learnin’, keepin’ up with every damn thing thrown at her. She was careful—yeah—but not scared. Not timid.
The kind of careful you earn from survivin’ a world that tried to teach you pain before it ever taught you safety.
Every now and then Ruby leaned in to show her how to ring somethin’ in, and Lark nodded, that wild blonde hair slippin’ over her shoulder. It caught the light every time she turned her head—made it damn near impossible not to look.
I told myself I was just keepin’ an eye on her ‘cause she was new.
Half true. Barely.
“Man, you’re starin’ again,” Gatsby muttered beside me, dryin’ glasses.
“I’m watchin’,” I said.
“Yeah,” he drawled, grinnin’. “That’s what I said.”
I shot him a look. He just chuckled and went back to work.
Across the room, Roxanne slid too close to Lark’s section. I knew that look, the sharp one that said she didn’t like sharin’ space she thought she owned. Seen it play out a hundred times. Never once ended graceful.
Sure enough, it started small. Roxanne bumped Lark by the soda gun, her laugh practiced and too damn bright.
“Careful, sweetheart,” she said. “Wouldn’t want you spillin’ on your first day.”
Lark froze for half a second, then stepped aside slow, sure. “Guess it gets easier when people stay outta my way.”
Roxanne’s smile cracked—hadn’t expected bite.
Ruby popped up with a smirk. “Rox, help Cassie with table eight. Me and Lark got this side.”
Roxanne huffed, strutted off, hips swingin’ hard enough to break somethin’.
I watched Lark’s eyes follow her—quiet daggers—before turning to Ruby and sayin’ somethin’ low. Then she went right back to work. No whinin’. No shrank-back softness. No pretendin’ to be delicate.
Damn, I liked that.
Half the girls who started here either flirted through the shift or cracked the second someone breathed sideways at ‘em. Lark just squared her shoulders and kept movin’.
I respected that more than I wanted to admit.
Ruby came up for refills a few minutes later. “She’s doin’ good,” she said, noddin’ toward Lark. “Learns quick.”
